Saturday, 30 June 2012

It sounds so sad, the West Peruvian dove on the fence outside my room. It looks so sad the mist-white Lima evening sky. It feels so sad to be leaving South America again, after a stolen sojourn here.

Stride through your Andes, Juan, inspiring visitors with tales of Inca kings and Spanish conquerors. Wade through those Amazonian muds, Fernando, sharing all the knowledge of the forest's birds and mammals held in your quick eyes and your sharp ears. Laugh your big laugh Renato as you usher new friends to the dry-sky wastes of Ica and Paracas.

I talk a lot, especially when working with local people who have vast stores of knowledge and understanding to share. As always, on this (now-extended) trip to Peru I’ve spent hours learning from my superb, generous colleagues; nowhere more so than in Amazonia where long boat rides sped past in happy conversation, comparing names for plants and animals in Amazonian Bolivia and Peru. For the linguistically savvy, here’s a list of Peruvian names I’ve learned recently in Amazonia, and of names I used for years for the same species while I lived in Bolivia. (Note that it may contain spelling errors as these names are derived from an oral tradition and all were hastily noted in the field.)

English name

Peruvian
(Tambopata) name

Bolivian (camba)
name

leafcutter
ant

curbinchi

cepe

walking
palm species 1

pona

pachiuba

walking
palm species 2

cashapona

zancudilla
/ pachiuba zancuda

Euterpe edible heart palm

wasaí

asaí

titi
monkey

ojo-ojo

spider
monkey

makisapa

marimono

river
turtle

taricaya

peta

howler
monkey

cotomono

manechi

bullet
ant

isula

tucandera
/ tucanguira

tiger
heron

puma
garza

socó

grey-necked
woodrail

unchala

caracoé

common
potoo

ayaymama

guajojó

capybara

ronsoco

capiguara

Cecropia

cetico

ambaibo

Astrocaryum palm

huicungo

chonta

Triplaris tree, home to
vicious stinging ants

tangarana

palo
santo / palo diablo

neotropic
cormorant

lavaculo

pato
cuervo

Erythrina coral bean tree

amasiza

gallito

screamer

camungo
(horned)

tapacaré
(southern)

tapir

sachavaca

anta

fer
de lance

jergón

yoperobobo
/ yope

bushmaster

shushupe

pucarara

giant
armadillo

yungunturo

pejichi

ocelot

tigrillo

gato
montés

tayra

manco

melero

undulated
tinamou

¿dónde
estás?

fonfón
/ fonfona

tinamou

panguana

perdiz

oropendola

paucar

tojo

plumbeous
/ ruddy pigeon

falta
poco

huasca
flojo

pale-vented
pigeon

ya
te vi

speckled
chachalaca

manacaraco
/ mierda carajo

charata

yellow-rumped
cacique

¡ay
qué rico!

tojo

razor-billed
currasow

paujil

mutún

jaguar

ibhá

chirapa
/ pata 'e lana / tigre

red-and-green
macaw

guacamayo
cabezón

paraba
roja

blue-and-yellow
macaw

guacamayo
boliviano

paraba
amarilla

chestnut-fronted
macaw (and other small macaws)

maracana

parabachi

silky
anteater

serafín

osito
oro

tamandua

chiwi

oso
hormiguero

giant
anteater

oso
bandera

vulture

gallinazo

sucha

giant
otter

lobo
de río

londra

sloth

pelejo

perezoso

agouti

añuje

jochi

paca

picuro

jochi
pintao

squirrel
monkey

huasita
/ fraile

saimiri

mealy
and yellow-crowned parrots

aurora
(which is the name used for a trogon in Bolivia)

nunbird

monjita

bati
bati

violaceous
jay

pían pían

blue-grey
tanager

sui
sui

(not
present in eastern Bolivia where sayubú is used for the near-identical sayaca
tanager)

2)On
arrival in Lima we were met by a guide and a driver who were warring with one
another in Spanish. ‘Why do all the drivers called Rubén cause me so much
trouble?’ asked the guide. Half an hour later, on arriving at our first museum
stop, she remembered to introduce herself. ‘What’s the Spanish for Fawlty
Towers?’ asked one of my clients.

3) Having visited the archaeological museum, where
we were berated for not knowing our Mochicas from our Nazcas, and I’m ashamed
to say I got the giggles, we had lunch at what the government styled a healthy restaurant. The health was
bacteriological, not arterial.

4)In
the sumptuous town hall in Lima’s beautiful Plaza de Armas we met Miss Peru,
squeezed into a skin-tight pink-shock frilly ball-gown and being photographed
in preparation for her trip to China to participate in the Miss World pageant.
She congratulated us on being from the country which had given the pageant to the
world.

5)At
the San Francisco church we admired the catacombs where generations of vergers
with far too much time on their hands had sorted the bones of thousands of
faithful departed into piles of dusty skulls, femurs and tibias. Miss Peru
looked fleshy by comparison.

6)Our
guide explained to us that she had been down in the catacombs during an
earthquake and during one of the frequent power-cuts occasioned by the
terrorism years. My clients seemed keen to leave.

7)At
Lima airport, leaving the country was as long and protracted a process as
anywhere I’ve ever been; not quite as bad as entering Madagascar, but close.

8)Around
seven-thirty, the boarding time for our flight, the captain admirably and
charmingly informed us that a hydraulic pump had failed on landing. Our flight
would inevitably be late.

9)Two
hours or so later he told us, with a touch of frazzle in his voice, that the
pump could not be fixed and a new one would have to be brought from Holland the
next day. Our flight would be rescheduled twenty-four to thirty hours later.

10)Getting
our exit from Peru legally cancelled, allocating us to hotels, restoring our
luggage to us, bussing us to our destinations and getting us fed were a hoot.
So too was the fury of some of our fellow passengers. Two elderly ladies in
wheelchairs smiled benignly, amused by the drama of it all and not a bit
flapped. I got to bed around two in the morning. What’s the Spanish for Fawlty
Towers? (In fairness to KLM and the Sheraton Hotel in Lima, this logistical migraine was dealt with as swiftly and efficiently as could be expected under the chaotic circumstances, and all my clients seem cheery. Naturetrekkers are a nice bunch.)

11)And
now in Lima we wait. Tummies full, clean beds to laze on and black vultures on
a pylon outside. It could be far, far worse and I am enjoying not having to
know when we have to leave for our next activity.

12)If
you’re one of my UK employers and you’re expecting me to teach a workshop for
you this week, I imagine I’ll be back soon.

When I made the rules of my list at the end of December last year I gave myself a grave handicap: I could only count species which I had seen. In Amazonia, of course, many birds are to be heard and not seen; but rules are rules and such species don't count. In an idle airport moment, however, I've come up with a list of birds I heard in the Amazon and Andean forests of Peru this month but which this time I didn't see. Almost certainly there are others which will emerge when I write the report of our Peruvian trip but these are the species I can remember for now.

Birds I heard (but
didn’t see) in Peru and which therefore don’t count on this daft list of mine

About Me

This is a blog about wildlife. It is also a blog about the way human beings relate to wildlife: how we perceive it, how we portray it in pictures and words, how we treat it, and what it means to us. Equally, it is, in no small measure, a blog about the way we relate to one another.
My name is Nick. I am a naturalist and wildlife conservationist. Native to Norfolk, and home here again, I have been privileged to live and work all over the world.
It shouldn’t take much to realise that I neither have, nor claim, any affiliation with cheap car insurance, nor with meerkats. This blog’s name is a simple play on words, in homage to a piece of advertising genius.
Simples.
Now, about that wildlife…